Birthday Cake Surprise!
by Iris Anthe
Summary: Duo gives Relena the best birtday present ever! (HYxRP) Answer to KMF's challenges, and written for all the birthday girls on Heero and Relena ML. ^_^ (If you liked this story, then you must read my story, Ante Up!)


The lights suddenly and predictably went out. Duo quietly reappeared, sliding up beside Quatre as they all began to sing Happy Birthday to Relena on her first birthday party in years.  
  
"Duo," Quatre whispered while the others kept singing, "Where have you been? I thought you might actually miss the cake!"  
  
Even in the meager light coming from the 20 candles on top of the huge, three foot diameter, four foot high, tiered, vanilla-iced cake, Quatre could see a decidedly insane look pass across his friend's face.  
  
"Ohhhh, I wouldn't miss THIS cake for all the tea in China my friend."  
  
Quatre kept singing the birthday song for Relena, but looked at Duo sidewise wondering if it was just the sheer size of the cake in proportion with his friend's legendarily large appetite that had the retired God of Death nearly twitching with excitement, or if there might be something else going on.  
  
"Happy Biiirthdaaaaay toooooo yoooooouuuuuuuuuu."  
  
"Now make a wish Relena and blow out those candles."  
  
The grin that was plastered on Duo's face was so alarming that even the birthday girl stopped dead in her tracks as he gave her a push towards the enormous cake.  
  
"Well go on! The clock is ticking here! Timing is everything, Relena. Go make a wish!!!"  
  
"Funny," Relena arched an eyebrow at the longhaired pilot, "I didn't realize that even my birthday party ran on such a tight schedule."  
  
Quatre stepped up to save the day. "Don't worry Miss Relena. Duo just can't wait to dig into that vanilla frosting. You know he always thinks with his stomach. Please, don't take his joking the wrong way. We all just want to see your birthday wish come true."  
  
Relena thought to herself that her wish had very little chance of coming true. If he hadn't bothered to show up by now, Heero simply wasn't coming. But, well, that was what wishing was for... impossible dreams.  
  
Relena leaned forward to reach the twenty candles perched on the top tier of the four foot tall cake and closed her eyes, making her wish. Just as she finished blowing out the last candle and Hilde turned the lights back on in the room, the cake exploded.  
  
Vanilla frosting, chocolate cake and twenty warm candles all went flying, covering walls, chairs, tables, guests and most especially the birthday girl herself. She was so shocked that she just stood there gaping and uncomprehending at what now had replaced the top half of her cake... a nearly naked Heero Yuy--he was dressed in sparkling silver skivvies--handcuffed in enormous, elbow-to-wrist, titanium binds, with a little hand-printed sign dangling from his neck that read, "Happy Birthday Princess."  
  
The first sound that filled the dead silence of the room was an enormous glob of cake and icing dangling from the end of Wu Fei's drawn gun hitting the floor with a sticky plop. The second sound was a musical mixture of all the stifled titters, giggles and eventual guffaws of relief and hilarity that belted out of everyone in the room, except out of Wu Fei of course to whom the whole scene was simply humiliating, and certainly not from our scantily clad, shackled hero.  
  
For her part, the Birthday Girl was still just standing there in complete shock, completely covered in cake and frosting, having been closest to it when Heero exploded from its top. It wasn't until Heero focused his gaze on her and said, "Where's Duo," with an obvious intent to cause bodily harm, that Relena finally and uncontrollably burst into side-splitting laughter, causing her to end up sitting in a puddle of vanilla goop on the floor, doubled over with hilarity.  
  
Since not a single person in the room, in fact no-one at ALL had EVER seen the former Queen of the World and current Presidential Candidate do anything louder than politely chuckle at even Duo's wildest antics, the sight of her completely lost in her own good humor was downright alarming. Once again the room went dead. Even Heero Yuy was so shocked that he momentarily forgot to be insanely angry and instead began to worry that the woman he'd always counted on to be stronger even than him, might have finally broken under the strain of her infinite workload.  
  
"Relena..." he murmured, "Are you alright?"  
  
All the blonde woman could do was slap the floor and gasp as she tried to get air in through laughter that was nearly painful.  
  
With one powerful leap, Heero was out of the cake and OOPS! sliding and slipping in the gobs of vanilla frosting at the foot of the cake. In seconds he was sprawled flat on his back and almost as covered in sugary goop as Relena. This of course did little to relieve our normally dignified lady of her current spasms of laughter.  
  
"Relena!" Heero leaned over and began shaking her, thinking that that's what you're supposed to do in these situations. All he got was handfuls of goop as she slid out of his giant-handcuff-limited grasp. To his complete consternation, she grew suddenly quiet and then very slowly and deliberately scooped up a giant glop of cake and smeared it across his chest.  
  
"I'm out of here," came Wu Fei's disgusted grunt at the sight of the two most repressed and unrequited lovers in history smearing food products over each other. "Yeah, I think that's a good idea Wu Fei," Sally smirked an agreement. "We should probably give those two some space."  
  
Within moments the room was empty save for a very sticky Heero and Relena.  
  
"Wow, this is definitely the best birthday I've ever had."  
  
-----  
  
Outside the building Quatre found Duo peeking out from around the corner. "Am I safe?" was his immediate question. Quatre was dying to know how he'd managed to get Heero to agree to pop out of Relena's birthday cake. "Weeeeeell... I wouldn't say he agreed exactly. But I'm impressed with myself for getting the tranquilizer dose right."  
  
"How on earth did you manage that?"  
  
"Well, I called up the zoo and asked how much it would take to knock out a baby rhinoceros for one hour, and then I doubled it."  
  
There really was nothing to say to that, so Quatre just shook his head and wished Duo good luck once Heero got out of those titanium binds. 


End file.
